One sign that a society is heading for the cliff is when medicine, once revered as the gatekeeper of ethical and moral decision-making, no longer fulfills that role. The curtain was drawn back for all to see during the COVID pandemic, when the majority of healthcare embraced the juggernaut of ridiculous and harmful policies devoid of any real scientific data.
When the trans mania was happening, the majority of medical professionals completely ignored the bioethical ramifications of providing what they called healthcare to gender dysphoric individuals. Starting as early as 2009, prestigious medical journals began publishing opinions that gender confused children should be ‘treated’ with puberty blockers. This supposed professional advice spurred the Biden Administration to make it national government policy. From there, many blue states enacted laws that forbid parents from objecting and interfering, a direct assault on the God-given authority of parents over their underage children.
Not having learned anything from their massive mistakes of the past, the medical institution is flexing its muscle again, this time in the area of euthanasia. The topic is ripe because there are 14 states, all blue except one, that allow doctor-assisted suicide. Gaining traction in medical literature is a proposal that deaths produce more than killing a patient; they provide an opportunity to use that person as a means of organ transplantation.
What is presently being challenged is the ethics behind the ‘dead donor rule’ (DDR). The DDR mandates that a potential donor of organs, itself not immoral, must be truly dead before the extraction. Rumors have circulated, though never proven, that unscrupulous donor banks and doctors ignore DDR guidelines. The probability is quite high given how much money these procedures take in, but it has alas always been hush-hush.
This appears to be changing, as the slippery slope is no longer a hypothetical warning but one being justified in the renowned New England Journal of Medicine in its July publication. The Journal argues directly against the guardrails of DDR and advocates a different means of obtaining organs from live persons before death, a procedure they coin “death by organ donation”.
Their immoral and unethical reasoning posits that since a person has decided to kill themselves already, why not have the cause of death be the harvesting of an organ like a heart instead of poisoning them with chemicals. The Journal cites pro-death countries like Canada, Belgium, and the Netherlands, which have already implemented death by organ donation. The Journal argues the organs harvested are much more viable for transplant than the ones coming from an already dead person.
Basically, the proposal insinuates that if the patient’s objective is to kill himself, what difference does it make how it is achieved? It makes a big difference because the act of killing oneself with the aid of medical intervention is not only immoral but also debases the institution once devoted to saving lives, not killing them.
By harvesting organs from living people, causing the death of a human being with an immortal soul is an all-out attack on the dignity of every person created in the image of God. If this practice becomes more mainstream, then it is a short jump to killing on the operating table the infirm, mentally ill, and disabled people, for starters. Don’t be surprised if leftists craft a law to let it happen.
It is also an affront to God himself, who is the source of life. Human beings are not sides of beef to be butchered for some other use; they are precious, and a society that reduces them to objects for its parts will not survive the barbarity for very long. We are already seeing it in the countless lives ended by abortion. Medicine is proving that the transition from saving lives to killing them is on the table for discussion. How far has this institution fallen?
The act of dissecting human beings for organs, once against every bioethical standard of decency, is being discussed as a possibility by the cult of death. Christians should denounce the practice with all vehemence and pray it never succeeds in this country.